... I don’t expect Juan Williams to support me (he’s said some tough things about me in the past) – but I will always support his right and the right of all Americans to speak honestly about the threats this country faces. And for Juan, speaking honestly about these issues isn’t just his right, it’s his job. Up until yesterday, he was doing that job at NPR. Firing him is their loss.
If NPR is unable to tolerate an honest debate about an issue as important as Islamic terrorism, then it’s time for “National Public Radio” to become “National Private Radio.” It’s time for Congress to defund this organization.
October 21, 2010
Sarah Palin: "Juan Williams: Going Rogue."
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 275 of 275I hope nobody turns an ankle, there are straw men everywhere!
"Does anyone believe that Nina Totenburg or Vivian Schiller would willingly board a plane with the flying imams?"
Of course not! But, unlike Williams, they'd lie about it. Or, not mention it at all. Because it's all about appearing respectable to all the "right" people. It's not about honesty!
I guess that $400 Million in taxpayer money goes where Hdhouse? Somebody gets it. The member stations pay money to NPR for dues. NPR has a $150 Million annual budget. Can you provide a link to their financial reports?
where I can go for my annual anne of green gables marathon.
No worries -- PBS is a different type of evil from that Williams-firing-NPR, though the CPB funds both.
Palladian:
To answer your question about the car re-runs, this is what I'd like to know:
How many hours of original programming do the taxpayers get for our $400 Million? If NPR and the member stations could tell us that and give us a list, I'd say OK maybe it is a worthwhile expenditure. But I have a feeling it just subsidizes lot of jobs and most of the stations just play the same old same old national programs over and over.
NPR is not the only public radio presence. I think 'A prairie home companion' is a public radio international (PRI) enterprise. PRI is suppose to be more entertainment than NPR. PRI is more progressive than NPR—if you can tell the difference between Garrison Keillor and Nina Tottenburg..
Juan Williams is supposed to be a REPORTER, not a commentator. When you work for a news station, you just give the facts, and let the public make up their own minds. When you work for opinion stations, like MSNBC and Fox, you can just editorialize till you're blue in the face.
Juan Williams is supposed to be a REPORTER, not a commentator. When you work for a news station, you just give the facts, and let the public make up their own minds. When you work for opinion stations, like MSNBC and Fox, you can just editorialize till you're blue in the face.
You are assuming the member stations don't fork over a fee to Keillor in addition to what he gets from NPR. What do you think he gets annually from NPR and all the local stations?
1. Keillor gets nothing from NPR.
2. Keillor gets paid by NPR-affiliated stations.
3. The CPB funnels $30 million of our tax money each year to help all the NPR-affiliated radio stations to buy programs, including Prairie Home Companion.
4. The total sum of money PHC grosses each year for its programs from individual stations I don't know.
Can we keep this Ritmo over the old one?
I contain multitudes, GMay.
And I think that's the whole point to not raking Williams over the coals, as well.
Trooper York, they're all midgets. You just can't tell, because it's radio. On the rare occasions you see them on TV, their height has been digitally enhanced to make them look standard height. Except for frequent commentator Robert B. Reich, who pretty much is as short as he looks on TV.
There are a couple of other exceptions, or were. Yes, this is the real reason Juan Williams was fired: height discrimination. And Mara Liasson will soon be the next victim of this reverse heightism.
Ritmo,
Not that it really matters in the grand scheme of things, but you've earned a lot of respect from me tonight.
NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are now toast.
James Taranto has a great piece in the WSJ pointing out some of the very liberal things that Juan Williams has said and for which he had not been fired by NPR. Apparently liberal opinions don't violate NPR journalistic ethics--only moderate views are troublesome.
NPR and CPB are toast. Say goodbye. They are about to go the way of Air America.
No problem, Youngblood. And anything can matter. I mean, I won't get schmaltzy and talk about touching another soul or whatnot but it is good to know when something I feel strongly about reverberates with what someone else is thinking - all the moreso when we're so used to being on opposite sides in so many other ways. It's a cool feeling to be able to see past a lot of goofy BS and meet on the larger things.
FLS:
Just so you understand, the member stations also pay significant dues to NPR. You could argue that money comes from CPB and the taxpayers.
PBS,NPR, CPB are all great examples of public subsidies for entertainment for rich powerful white people. Unlike subsidies for things like orchestras or theater groups, the broadcast venues don't even have the excuse that they don't have any free market counterparts. The better NPR programs will be picked up immediately by the free market (cf. e.g. Edwards, Bob). The current brouhaha is only reason #2,371 to get rid of public funding.
The problem of course, is that the rich powerful white people who listen to NPR LIKE the fact that the proles are forced at the point of a gun to pay taxes for their entertainment.
NPR just hired someone to replace Juan Williams. Can you guess who this is?
"The problem of course, is that the rich powerful white people who listen to NPR LIKE the fact that the proles are forced at the point of a gun to pay taxes for their entertainment."
Rich folks pay for plenty of government via taxes, getting NPR out of the deal is only fair. Not to mention that many of them are accepting that their tax rates are going up. And, many of them also contribute directly to NPR.
Just as some old cons warn about Medicare and the government's hands, I'm sure that some rich folks may say re NPR, 'keep the government's hands off my NPR' (which means keep funding it).
Bob_R,
I'm not sure that I agree in the case of PBS. I mean, any time I turn on my local PBS affiliate, it seems like Antiques Roadshow is on. It's an immensely popular show in my (blue collar) family.
Then, when I think of things that I grew up watching on PBS, from Halloween broadcasts of Night of the Living Dead to Jack Horkheimer: Star Hustler to British imports like Dr. Who, I can't remember a lot of upper class stuff, y'know?
I'll point out that in my hometown, Philly, they do a lot of Doo Wop concerts and things like that, which are pretty solidly blue collar in appeal.
I don't think that PBS is as monolithic in its upper class appeal as you're suggesting.
AP,
I know who it is.
Also, for what it's worth, growing up watching a fair bit of PBS, I never really felt it was particularly political, either.
HD House@ "idiot. all not true."
Ahh, name-calling, is that all you got? Don't answer, of course it is.
And if that's not the case, let's just pull the funding and we can see if I'm wrong.
@1jpb - I'm glad to see that you agree that our government is just a complex system of graft and payoffs. Of course, to me it's not a feature, it's a bug.
There are well over 200 posts on this thread and not one has offered a positive defense of any PUBLIC PURPOSE for any of these shows. Many of them are entertaining, informative, perfectly good shows. But they all have thousands of competitors on broadcast TV, radio, cable, and internet. I am constantly amazed that anyone can justify funding them with tax dollars with a straight face.
I love when people insist that NPR isn't reliant on public funds.
If it isn't reliant on public funds... why are we giving it public funds? If it is self-supporting, let it self-support.
Palin's Facebook status tomorrow:
Defund, Baby, Defund!
"There are well over 200 posts on this thread and not one has offered a positive defense of any PUBLIC PURPOSE for any of these shows. Many of them are entertaining, informative, perfectly good shows. But they all have thousands of competitors on broadcast TV, radio, cable, and internet. I am constantly amazed that anyone can justify funding them with tax dollars with a straight face."
You must not listen to NPR, since you don't realize that it is in fact different than the media you've mentioned. It's an enclave of calm amid a storm of blather.
I used to listen to NPR, station of doubleplusgood rightthink. It rode to my radio on an airwave of smug, sedated hall monitors singing me lullabies of liberal visions.
Then the Iraq War issue began, and I realized just how comfortable their journalists were with lies. "Iraq's not so bad." Yeah, okay.
The treatment of Williams is shameful. Pull the funding.
Wow! Close to 600 comments between two blog posts on Juan Williams. I'll bet he didn't realize he was quite that popular!
Wait a second. He was one of them there liberal elites, weren't he? Nemmind. I'll bet in his heart of hearts he always believed it.
There's one simple, basic reason for defunding NPR. Same reason why I don't have cable or satellite TV at my house. With everything else we're paying for, we can't afford it.
NPR proves there is no honor among thieves.
they're all midgets
I sat in front of the Totebag at the Opera some years ago. She was there with Rita Braver of CBS. They both needed booster seats.
Leaving aside Juan Williams firing, what is the exact reasoning for continuing to have government funding of NPR?
In this day and age of unlimited mediai in a variety of formats, not to mention the internet, why does the government have to continue to contribute to NPR or PBS? Prior to cable, you might not be able to see opera, or british tv, so PBS for example served a purpose. What is that purpose now?
NPR is a relic. It's like a radio station with tenure. No matter how low its market share it continues receiving funding.
Why can't it compete in the marketplace?
You must not listen to NPR, since you don't realize that it is in fact different than the media you've mentioned. It's an enclave of calm amid a storm of blather.
Yeh, sure, they talk in measured tones. But the news is still reported from a leftist point of view, and the commentary is, almost exclusively, even more leftist.
If this is what you want, then the Brits too it better - try the BBC News. My father has pretty much permanently given up on broadcast news and watches them instead. And, yes, they talk a bit funny, but still do a better job than NPR.
Oh, I like this from the left: Juan Williams Was Fox News' "Lawn Jockey" (not the blog I linked to, but where that leads).
Oh, and this: I See White People: Juan Williams Firing Leaves Sudden Lack Of Diversity On Air at NPR.
I still think Fred3Pres had the best comment.
Four. Four. Four. Fred4Pres.
I notice that AT LEAST 3 different commenters have challenged garage on his stupid comment to "defund" Alaska in retaliation for defunding the CPB/NPR.
Once he realized that meant ceding ANWR and all the other natural resources in Alaska, he went radio silent right away...
It's pretty safe to say that he has ceded the point...
the member stations also pay significant dues to NPR. You could argue that money comes from CPB and the taxpayers.
The money that does not come from CPB comes from the stations' contributors: you, me, et al. Some no doubt comes from state and local taxing bodies though.
There are well over 200 posts on this thread and not one has offered a positive defense of any PUBLIC PURPOSE for any of these shows.
Revenant said...
I love when people insist that NPR isn't reliant on public funds.
If it isn't reliant on public funds... why are we giving it public funds? If it is self-supporting, let it self-support.
Ah. I guess a lot of you weren't around in 1967.
47 USC 396 provides your answers.
There's one simple, basic reason for defunding NPR. Same reason why I don't have cable or satellite TV at my house. With everything else we're paying for, we can't afford it.
The answer to this is that Congress mandated PBS and NPR reach your house free of charge.
garage mahal said...
Right after we defund Alaska, a state completely dependent on pork, federal handouts, and oil profits, which costs us $2 for every $1 we send. Return those oil welfare checks your receive from the government for your litter of little grizzlies. Set an example for us.
==================
It would be a far better deal for Alaska if they were set free to develop their own separate country free of the Lower 48's laws and regulations.
Someone pointed out that they can't because the Federal Gov't "OWNS" Alaska because they "purchased it for 8 million". Well, two things to say to that:
1. By 1880 that investment had been triply recouped by Alaskans doing gold mining. Then that investment was further paid back with staggering returns to the Fed's pockets by the forestry, sealing, fishing industries. Then the creme de la creme of coughing money back to the Feds - Alaskan Oil.
2. If the Feds have control over any part of the USA they purchased or took by force, not citizens - do the history tour. Florida Purchase, Louisiana Purchase, purchase of most of N Dakota and part of Minnesota. Add the Mex War and the 23 million in compensation we paid to them for Colorado all the way over to all of California and toss in the Gladsen Purchase where we got a little more..
The history was that the Feds slowly but surely transferred land to private citizens until FDR, then it shifted to the Feds taking land from citizens and vowing to "not reliquish a scrap of 'national land' to private citizens.
Why can't it compete in the marketplace?
I posted a link to an LA Times article: public radio is booming.
In some ways, they're right where Obama is: Politically and ideologically Left but conservative in 'message' to appeal to a wider audience.
The likely majority is further right, and reacting accordingly.
Do you try and regain the magic (independent votes) or appeal to your Leftist base being strengthened before our very eyes?
Justice (secular) and Equality (huge State) are right around the corner. Freedom is next...
James Taranto has a great piece in the WSJ
Great. One Rupert Murdoch employee explaining why NPR should not have fired another Rupert Murdoch employee for being prejudiced against Muslims.
But the news is still reported from a leftist point of view, and the commentary is, almost exclusively, even more leftist.
NPR just looks left because Bruce has been programmed by Rupert Murdoch.
Sad, really.
"If it isn't reliant on public funds... why are we giving it public funds? If it is self-supporting, let it self-support."
Ah. I guess a lot of you weren't around in 1967. 47 USC 396 provides your answers.
The reason Congress shouldn't defund it is... 43 years ago, Congress voted to fund it?
What an unusual brain you possess.
AlphaLiberal said...
They should not participate in shows electronic forums, or blogs that encourage punditry and speculation rather than rather than fact-based analysis.
Oh alphaliar, you just don't know when to quit do you, you little verbal vomit machine. Under these terms, Juan should have been fired years ago, but say one thing about muslims and the leftards like you and at NPR get to see their PC-O-Meter peg to 100!!!
The answer to this is that Congress mandated PBS and NPR reach your house free of charge.
That's easy - what Congress mandates, Congress can un-mandate. Problem solved.
WTF should Congress be mandating that we receive free leftist propaganda in the form of NPR?
Or, maybe they should mandate that we also receive a right-of-center viewpoint free too. But, that would get us back to having the government control content. Who is to decide what is sufficiently conservative to counter the liberal bias in esp. NPR?
NPR just looks left because Bruce has been programmed by Rupert Murdoch.
I would say just the opposite - that it doesn't look leftist to many because they compare it to other mainstream media, such as NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, etc. It is only when compared to right-of-center media such as Fox, that the leftist bias of these different media organizations become apparent.
And, yes, you need to look at what is reported, what is suppressed, and how it is spun. And, from all those, much of NPR has a leftist spin, and makes less of an attempt to compensate for that than some of the other leftist MSM outlets.
If you want to say that you view Fox and NPR, and decide from that what is really happening, then fine, because the biases of the two outlets would go a fair ways towards balancing each other out - though I will still contend that Fox is much closer to the center than NPR, or the other alphabet MSM outlets are, giving liberals more voice than they give (real) conservatives.
From the Daily Beast: NPR's Juan Williams Disaster:
His firing has backfired, handing Fox a victory and making Williams a symbol of liberal intolerance—on the very day NPR announced a grant from George Soros that it never should have accepted...
And in a triumph of awful timing, yesterday was the day that NPR announced a new grant—$1.8 million from liberal philanthropist George Soros to hire 100 new reporters. No news organization should accept that kind of check from a committed ideologue of any stripe. Even if every journalist hired with the cash from Soros’ foundation is fair and balanced, to coin a phrase, the perception is terrible. (This New York Times story didn’t even mention Soros’ liberal views. The guy just gave a million bucks to Media Matters. Hello?) Oh, and NPR is in the midst of a fundraising drive. Good luck with that.
FLS:
Here is how it works:
Taxpayers give CPB $400 Million.
CPB doles it out to public stations across the USA,
Public stations pay program fees and due to NPR!
So some of that $400 Million finds its way back to NPR.
Got it!
where I can go for my annual anne of green gables marathon.
No worries -- PBS is a different type of evil from that Williams-firing-NPR, though the CPB funds both.
Not sure we could defund one with out the other. Or that we should.
Juan's statement is pretty interesting. He has been pissed at NPR about that Bush interview and he is probably thrilled to get a chance to bitch!
Freedom of speech is not at issue
Well, except for the fact that a "public" entity funded by the government is censoring speech.
Juan Williams is supposed to be a REPORTER, not a commentator.
Um, he was on O'Reilly as a "contributor"
Not a reporter.
Ignorance is a virtue for you leftists.
NPR just looks left
Hysterical.
Here is Nina Totenberg on Senator Jesse Helms:
“I think he ought to be worried about what’s going on in the Good Lord’s mind, because if there is retributive justice, he’ll get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will get it.”
You only make such simpleton comments because you're ignorant.
Sad, really.
Who knew that Juan Williams was just another foe of Garrison Keillor, a 'nihilist in golf pants, ninja dittohead, tax cheat, cheese merchant, cat strangler, lizardskin cigar monkey, a brownshirt in pinstripes'?
And him on NPR almost 10 years.
The nerve of the guy!
Remember, Juan, Keillor sez that "liberalism is the politics of kindness. Liberals stand for tolerance, magnanimity, community spirit, the defense of the weak against the powerful, love of learning, freedom of belief, art and poetry, city life, the very things that make America worth dying for.""
And you jes' been whupped upside the head with the cluebat of liberal kindness.
Remember to thank them!
And be sure to call in your pledge to NPR.
It is pledge week, after all.
Conservatives should organize a crew of people to follow and film NPR execs & NPR news readers when they give speeches to document the opinions they express. Turnabout is fair play.
The essence of Mr. Williams' 'crime' was not his hack punditry, as incompetent as he may have been. Mr. Williams repeatedly violated his professional contract with NPR despite warnings about his violations. He attempted to play both ends against the middle with NPR and Fox for personal gain. His behavior was unprofessional, not politically incorrect.
As for NPR, it’s fairly simple - they don’t want one of its commentators to suggest that profiling is reasonable or acceptable - because so much of the rest of the media regularly talk that way.
Part of our tradition has always been a loud, angry and confrontational media. It isn’t going anywhere. NPR simply feels there's also room for an alternative. That doesn't mean NPR is trying to silence anyone. Including Williams, who doing just fine, now at Fox, thank you. It means NPR takes a different approach, one that's not for everyone.
"It means NPR takes a different approach, one that's not for everyone."
Great; I agree.
Then they shouldn't be funded by everyone through taxes.
Surely they won't miss a minuscule "2-3%" of public funding of NPR or any public radio or TV station.
Fly, little bird!
Fly on your own!
Pogo:
How many hours before NPR and Vivian Schiller begin back pedaling? I bet by Monday- shoot the President may have to have another beer summit where everyone speaks very softly.
That or they double down.
It's very hard to back away from telling someone they should be seeing a psychiatrist.
That one stung; the clip of O-Reilly discussing it with Williams suggests that the comment was a real knife in the back.
It would take about 2 six-packs to make the average guy forget that level of cruelty. And then only for the night.
The next morning you remember, and you now have a killer headache.
So I've heard.
Smooth move NPR. Remind everyone you are a useless tax parasite in front of the biggest anti-spending tsunami ever. I'll bet that's a thing you didn't consider.
Juan Williams is supposed to be a REPORTER, not a commentator.
Um, he was on O'Reilly as a "contributor"
Not a reporter.
Ignorance is a virtue for you leftists.
I'll explain by way of analogy -- hopefully JAY can comprehend:
Sundays through Fridays, Juan Williams is a faithful wife (to NPR) and mother.
Saturday Juan goes down to the cocktail lounge (Fox) and sluts it up.
NPR asks how Juan can be a whore on Saturday and a chaste matron the rest of the week, and divorces Juan.
"If it isn't reliant on public funds... why are we giving it public funds? If it is self-supporting, let it self-support."
Ah. I guess a lot of you weren't around in 1967. 47 USC 396 provides your answers.
The reason Congress shouldn't defund it is... 43 years ago, Congress voted to fund it?
What an unusual brain you possess.
Revenant is too bone-lazy to look up a statute. I blame his no-doubt-influenced-by-Dr.-Spock parents.
You only make such simpleton comments because you're ignorant.
Let me put Nina's statement in context for you:
The Ryan White act to fund care and treatment for impoverished AIDS patients was coming up for renewal.
Jesse Helms said, in effect: "Fuck the AIDS patients. AIDS is God's punishment for letting men fuck them in the ass."
At which point Nina Totenburg observed:
“I think he ought to be worried about what’s going on in the Good Lord’s mind, because if there is retributive justice, he’ll get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will get it.”
Meaning that any innocent person -- like the eponymous Ryan White -- could get AIDS from a transfusion, and that apparently Jesse Helms could learn this only from direct experience.
Revenant is too bone-lazy to look up a statute. I blame his no-doubt-influenced-by-Dr.-Spock parents.
No, you're too bone-stupid to understand his point, which is that citing a statute as justification for the existence of the *same statute* is the very definition of circular reasoning.
It's very hard to back away from telling someone they should be seeing a psychiatrist
I don't think was advising him to get help.
I think she was revealing his private medical history on national television.
Malice.
Mr. Williams repeatedly violated his professional contract with NPR despite warnings about his violations.
Prove that.
No, you're too bone-stupid to understand his point, which is that citing a statute as justification for the existence of the *same statute* is the very definition of circular reasoning.
I honestly didn't think the point would be that hard to spot, but FLS always rises to a challenge.
Former Law Student wrote:
Ah. I guess a lot of you weren't around in 1967. 47 USC 396 provides your answers.
The reason Congress shouldn't defund it is... 43 years ago, Congress voted to fund it?
What an unusual brain you possess.
That was before my time. That was the time when there was no internet, no cell phones, no pcs or laptops, and music came on these things called records.
Is the argument that because something was funded close to a half century go it should continue in perpetuity? Perhaps NPR and congress can join the modern world and not the world of 50 years ago.
It was in this millennium that the Mexican War tax was repealed.
If they kill CPB now, they're ahead of the game! It'd be a virtual tsunami of government slashing!
No, you're too bone-stupid to understand his point, which is that citing a statute as justification for the existence of the *same statute* is the very definition of circular reasoning.
Ah, you guys have never read many statutes before. I get it. Pity you're both too bone lazy to look it up. There's a beautiful, comprehensive policy justification to fund public broadcasting with our tax dollars.
Further, if some of these premises are no longer valid, you would have the joy of constructing arguments on those points.
But you fellows can't be arsed.
"$1.8 million from liberal philanthropist George Soros to hire 100 new reporters."
Wow, I had no idea reporters were so poorly paid!
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